Longevity?
Talk about long life. This guy, Jonathan, turned 190 years of age last month!
Jonathan is Seychelles Giant Tortoise hatched in the Georgian era and is the oldest known living land animal on Earth and the oldest ever recorded chelonian. He lives in a British overseas territory, St. Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic.
The world’s oldest tortoise has lived through two world wars, at least forty US Presidents, the Scopes Monkey Trials, the rise and fall of the British
Empathy!
We knew it all along. Women on average are better than men at putting themselves in others’ shoes and imagining what another person is thinking or feeling. But that’s now been confirmed in a vast study across 57 countries and across all ages.
So proclaimed “Sex and Age Differences in ‘Theory Of Mind’ across 57 Countries Using the English Version of the ‘Reading The Mind In The Eyes’ Test,” published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy
Swallowed!
The most dangerous animal in the world is apparently the mosquito, killing up to one million humans each year by spreading diseases including Zika and malaria. Snakes and wolves and bears are dangerous too. But hippos? Those cute, huge, “river-horses” (which is what “potamus” + “hippo” means)?
They are. Five hundred humans are killed in Africa a year by these beasts. They spend most of their time in the water but are aggressively territorial and can attack boaters
Errors!
According to the CDC, about 136 million folks go emergency rooms (ERs) in the USA each year. That’s about 373,000 a day, 15,525 every hour, 259 every minute, 4 every second. All day, all night, all week, all year. Every year!
Overall ERs are good places to visit when you are in an emergency. But according a to a systematic review from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, approximately 5.7% are misdiagnosed: 21,260 misdiagnosed patients every day! Wow!
Of course,
Judges 7:23–8:32
Godliness involves abandonment of self-glorifying vendettas and of power.
After Jdg 7:22, with Israel’s victory over the Midianites accomplished, one would have expected the narrative to conclude with the notice of the Midianites being subdued and the land obtaining rest, followed by an announcement of Gideon’s death and its aftermath. But no, there is an “interpolation” before the end that adds some more unsavory dimensions to Gideon’s life.
The summoning of troops
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.